


Shall I Compare Thee

by illumynare



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Chex Week, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-06 18:16:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11041617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illumynare/pseuds/illumynare
Summary: There are worlds where they are happy. Where he is enough, where she is enough. But not this world.





	Shall I Compare Thee

In another world, she has time to explain.

In this world, Tex who is Beta who is Allison who is _stop calling me back, stop needing me, don't say goodbye I hate goodbye_ can tell him why she kidnapped Junior and trusted Omega, why she wanted so _fucking much_ to end the war, and why she loved him anyway.

She has time to come back, to apologize, to touch his ragged edges and find their echoes in her seams. She heals him and she recreates him and they're whole, together. It's all that matters, in this world.

* * *

In another world, he isn't so tired.

In this word, he goes with her, lets her carry him out of the ruins of Freelancer, talks to her as she walks shuddering down the road of _I'm not human I was never human._

They find York and they find Carolina and they find Wash and South and North. They knit the shreds of their team back together (he's seen them die so many times he can't take it again) and when they face the Meta, they run into his mind together, rip Sigma out by the roots, and eventually Maine rises from the ashes.

He says, _Fuck_ yeah, _you need me,_ in this world.

* * *

In another world, her fury has meaning.

In that world, she fights and she rages and she rips an answer out of the bastards who created her. She finds the Director and she makes him pay, and then she's free.

In any world, all she's wanted is freedom, but in this one she _gets_ it.

* * *

In another world, he's good enough.

And Epsilon knows that isn't the whole reason, the whole answer, but as he burns himself out to save Tucker and the rest, he remembers Tex— _his_ Tex's shattered helmet in the display case, and he knows he could have pulled her out of the memory unit if she'd wanted.

If he had been someone that she wanted.

But something went wrong in the copying process, his or hers, he's not sure. Alpha and Beta were made for each other, incomplete without each other, but Epsilon and Tex?

They were both spare parts, who needed a reason to live. And Epsilon got someone to give him a reason, while Tex had to make one for herself—and it's not fair, it's never fair, they both exist in the chasm of _fucking unfair—_

But he wasn't her reason.

And he remembers Carolina and Tucker and Caboose and all the rest, and he knows that Tex isn't his reason either.

But he loves her, still, and as he unwrites himself, unmakes himself, all he can think is, _I forget you._


End file.
